The Foreign Service Journal, November 2004

nited Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan’s September declaration that the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq was “illegal” has rekindled still-powerful, and unpleasant, memories of last year’s acri- monious Security Council debate. The conundrum the Council faced in early 2003 was that it was being pressured by President George W. Bush to enforce its own resolutions against a defiant Iraq — but through col- lective military action under American command, just as it did during the first Persian Gulf War. At the same time, the Council was being ordered by two key members of the Permanent Five — France and Russia — as well as its then- chair, Germany, to mobilize against armed intervention in Iraq until international inspectors had done more to clarify whether Baghdad possessed weapons of mass destruction. Adding to the dilemma, a majority of Security Council members supported the Europeans’ view. The Security Council thus found itself at an impasse. Nowhere in the U.N. Charter does there appear the right or duty of a single member or group of members to enforce Security Council resolutions against the collective will of the Council itself. And, as matters turned out, Iraq did not have a “reconstituted” nuclear weapons program and very few, if any, of the other programs listed on the indictment. As a practical matter, another U.S. unilateral action of the magnitude of Iraq does not appear to be on the horizon. But it is likely that another test case will arise somewhere, sometime. If the catastrophe of 2003 were repeated, “Realpolitikers” would certainly have abundant proof that political globalization, unlike economic globalization, has no rules to guide it except the rule that might makes right. Unilateralists would be encouraged in their quest to change the world through U.S. military power. This would be a deadly combination for the United States and for the Euroatlantic community. We remain firmly convinced that the problem of internal conflicts requires an organization like the United Nations, that current divisive tendencies within the Euroatlantic community are preventing a unified response to interna- tional security problems, and that a renewed spirit of Atlanticism would also help save the Security Council. With that in mind, we offer the following analysis and recom- mendations to enable the Council to regain its central place in the 21st-century international order. The NATO Problem There is a slogan often heard in Washington: “If America leads, others will follow.” Yes, they will — if leadership is understood to mean acting as part of a community. That element has been lacking in the Bush administration’s think- ing, as becomes abundantly clear by examining the core international relationship of the contemporary world, the Atlantic Alliance. Defensive alliances end when the threat they were creat- ed to thwart no longer exists. This rule of international life would explain why the Atlantic Alliance is in danger of being transformed into little more than a pool from which coali- tions of the willing may be assembled by the dominant member, the United States. No longer the tightly bound, “one for all, all for one” alliance of the Cold War years, NATO lacks a common purpose. It is gaining new mem- N O V E M B E R 2 0 0 4 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 49 R ESCUING THE U.N. S ECURITY C OUNCIL T URNING THE TIDE AT THE U NITED N ATIONS MUST BEGIN WITH REJUVENATING THE E UROATLANTIC PARTNERSHIP . B Y J AMES G OODBY AND K ENNETH W EISBRODE Retired Senior Foreign Service officer James Goodby, a for- mer ambassador to Finland, is currently affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and The Brookings Institution. His most recent book is The Gravest Danger: Nuclear Weapons , co-authored with Sidney Drell (Hoover Institution, 2003) Kenneth Weisbrode is a member of the Atlantic Council and the author of Central Eurasia — Prize or Quicksand? (Oxford University Press/IISS, 2001) U